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Volunteering’s a means, not an end. Charities should get elected or get stuffed.

15/02/2011, 09:13:48 AM

by Dan Hodges

Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop, was once asked for his view on an upcoming libel case involving Mohammad Al Fayed and Neil Hamilton. “I hope they both lose”, was his response. I’ve got the same feeling about the unfolding debate about the “big society”.

There are times at the moment when attempting to analyse British politics feels a bit like analysing the Mad Hatter’s tea party:

“’Have some wine’, the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine’, she remarked. ‘There isn’t any’, said the March Hare. ‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it’, said Alice angrily”.

Or, with apologies to Lewis Carroll:

“The prime minister announced, with a flourish, his ‘big idea’. ‘Our purse is empty. But do not worry. The voluntary sector will shoulder the burden’. The volunteers looked up with a start. ‘But we can’t. You’ve taken all our money as well’, they cried. ‘Taken your money’? replied the prime minister, ‘But I thought you were volunteers’? ‘We are’, they responded, ‘and we expect to be well paid for it’”.

Perhaps my analogy is a touch harsh. Our nation’s voluntary and charitable sectors are not the equivalent of Mohammed Al Fayed. And no one is the equivalent of Neil Hamilton. (more…)

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A centrist critique of David Marquand’s annual compass lecture

14/02/2011, 03:30:28 PM

by Jonathan Todd

The chair of last Thursday’s annual Compass lecture, Neal Lawson, closed proceedings by asking the speaker, David Marquand, to return in 10 years time, when Marquand will be 86 years old, to reflect upon developments in the intervening period. He also expressed the hope that at this time the respondents to Marquand’s address would be the most powerful people in the land: Ed Miliband as prime minister; Caroline Lucas as chancellor; Francesca Klug as home secretary; and Evan Harris as health secretary.

Earlier, Lawson had praised Marquand for arguing that, as social democracy will never reach its final terminus, the journey towards social democracy is more important than conceiving of its end. “The goal is nothing; the movement everything”, quipped Eduard Bernstein, the grandfather of social democracy, over 100 years ago.

Lawson would doubtless claim that much more openness and collaboration between parties of the left is part of this journey. But his imaging of the 2021 cabinet indicated where he wants this to be heading. It may cause people to wonder what exactly the parties of Miliband, Lucas, Klug and Harris stand for if they agree on as much as Lawson believes. (more…)

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As we celebrate new Middle Eastern democracy, let’s not forget the old one

14/02/2011, 12:00:33 PM

by Michael Dugher

When interviewed this morning on the Today programme, the Israeli deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said he “very much applauded the Egyptian people” but he warned that the “uncertainty” in Egypt created vulnerabilities for Israel and the wider region. Yesterday, on BBC One’s Andrew Marr show, quartet envoy, Tony Blair, described the events as a “pivotal moment” and urged the West to engage with supporters of democracy and help countries evolve and move in the right direction. Significantly, he said that progress could unblock the Middle East peace process and be of “huge benefit”.

This cautious, yet hopeful, outlook comes after William Hague’s tour of the region last week. I was in Israel at the time and Hague’s ill-judged intervention, where he seemed unwilling to back the Egyptian pro-democracy protesters, while at the same time calling Israel (the only democracy in the region) “belligerent”, was viewed with a mixture of despair and resignation. Hague’s inept and insensitive comments reinforced the perception, wrongly in my view, that the UK and Europe have slid into a position of hostility towards Israel and therefore are unable to play their part as honest brokers in the peace process. Regrettably, Hague’s intervention can only serve to diminish the UK’s influence in the region. (more…)

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Canny Harold’s lessons for the two Eds

14/02/2011, 07:00:16 AM

by Kevin Meagher

Clem Attlee may be lionised as a great prime minister. Tony Blair revered as an election winner.

But you need to cast a backward glance to the swinging sixties and sagging seventies to see that it is Harold Wilson (Labour leader between 1963 and 1976, serving as prime minister for eight of those years) who has the most to teach Eds Miliband and Balls.

For Ed Miliband, Wilson’s successor-but-seven, there are three main lessons to be learned.

The first is in managing the party. This was no mean feat back in the 60s and 70s. Wilson led during the golden age of Labour dissent. He had to contend with a cabinet containing some of the hugest egos British politics has ever produced: Crossman, Jenkins, Healey, Callaghan, Castle and George Brown.

Wilson sat pre-eminent amid this mass of turbulent, squabbling, brilliance; partly, it has to be said, through the involuntary tactic of being distrusted by just about everyone.

But Wilson used talent effectively. His Gaitskellite chancellors: Callaghan, Jenkins and Healey – each loathed Wilson and were all strong potential replacements; yet Wilson co-opted their brainpower and political brute force for the good of his governments. (more…)

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Sunday Review: The Road from Ruin, by Matthew Bishop & Michael Green

13/02/2011, 01:16:32 PM

by Anthony Painter

There are two fallacies about economics. First, that it can explain anything other than the bleeding obvious. It is not difficult to look back at last year’s growth, add or subtract a quarter of a percent or so, then say that will be this year’s growth rate. It would be useful to know if the economy is going to collapse by 5%. Economists don’t see those icebergs.

The second fallacy is that it is difficult. It’s not; it’s dead easy. Some people describe economics as the “dismal science”. They are being generous. It is not a science. See fallacy one for an explanation of why.

In increasing acts of desperation, economists are casting around other academic disciplines to: (i) explain why economics has been getting it so wrong; (ii) try to regain our trust so that they can get it wrong again; and (iii) say something new and clever-sounding given that everything else they’ve been saying is so bleeding obvious yet often wrong.

Psychology is the first victim of this “great plundering”. Hence “nudge”, irrational exuberance and all the rest.

So when Matthew Bishop and Michael Green write, “this crisis brings with it a tremendous opportunity [for economics] to help policymakers, financiers, business leaders, and other practical people do better”, forgive me for ploughing all my savings into the safest, most secure asset I can find. Futures on sales of Keynes’ General Theory would seem to be a good bet. (more…)

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Raising the state pension age hits the hard-working the hardest

11/02/2011, 11:43:46 AM

By John Hannett

Any increase in the state pension age has the biggest impact on those who cannot afford to retire without it. Predominantly men in low-income jobs and women.

That is why Usdaw member, Barbara Bates, has set up a petition against the Tory-led government’s plans to speed up the increase in the state pension age to 66 by 2020 for both men and women:

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/handsoff

Barbara’s story sets out how she feels that ministers have robbed her of two years of freedom, and of over £10,000 of state pension that she has been working for since the age of 15. (more…)

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Shadow cabinet goal of the month

11/02/2011, 08:00:56 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Three moments of magic from the shadow cabinet

A few years ago, the newsreader Martyn Lewis made a plea for more positivity in the news. His Jerry Maguire moment was greeted as, well, Jerry Maguire’s was.

For Lewis, there wasn’t a redemptive ending; he wasn’t vindicated and every time he read the news subsequently, you couldn’t help but think he was a bit odd.

But somewhere in what he was saying, was a grain of something. Not quite common sense, because clearly no one is going to be interested in news that reports everything is just fine. But in his own slightly pompous and mistaken way, he was articulating a desire that most of us have for some light to provide a bit of contrast to the constant shade.

Politics is a dark place at the moment. The coverage reflects this. The sun isn’t shining for Labour and things are far from how they should be. But there are flashes of light. And it’s as important to recognise these as the mistakes which deepen the gloom. Otherwise there’s no basis for hope and no route back from opposition to power. (more…)

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How the Tories talk down consumer confidence

10/02/2011, 04:00:34 PM

by Richard Horton

There has been much talk in the business pages of a two speed economic recovery. A recovery that sees the economies of the developing world grow quickly while the developed world sluggishly heaves itself out of the remnants of the financial crisis. The long and painful rebalancing of a number of Europe’s economies, the UK’s included, is forecast. And yet life, or should that be economics, is not that straightforward. Within the developed world and especially within Europe, we are witnessing our very own two speed economic recovery.

Economists at ING Group describe how “a deep economic chasm” has formed between core euro-zone countries and the rest. The UK may well sit outside the euro-zone but that does not mean that it sits outside of Europe’s two speed economic recovery. At first glance, the GDP figures for the fourth quarter of 2010 may point to the UK being firmly rooted on the sluggish side of the European chasm. But what is more telling than GDP figures or manufacturing production numbers is consumer and business confidence.

Two weeks ago, the BBC reported the findings of a social research survey published by GfK NOP. The results showed how consumer confidence between December and January had plummeted by its largest monthly fall since 1994. UK consumers were not just more worried about their current financial situation compared to a year ago but they were also more concerned about the future of the economy compared to a year ago. In contrast, and on the other side of the European chasm, the same survey indicated that German consumer and business confidence had reached a four year high in January. (more…)

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A practical, popular, socialist policy on high pay

10/02/2011, 12:00:43 PM

by Dan Cooke

It does not seem unfair to suggest that Sir Peter Tapsell, first elected on the coat-tails of Harold Macmillan in 1959, is not an obvious candidate for Ed Miliband’s “new generation”. By the same token, this enduring embodiment of the squirarchy would not commonly be associated with notions of “levelling down”, the “politics of envy” or – in language less likely to be heard within the walls of the Carlton Club – action on excessive pay.

Yet in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Sir Peter – wittingly or otherwise – took the first major step in sketching out a meaningful prospectus for the high pay commission promised under a future Labour government. A prospectus that the Labour front bench has signally failed to provide so far.

In the Labour leadership contest, the proposed high pay commission was a signature issue for Ed Miliband: a sign that he would lead Labour away from the era when senior ministers were “seriously relaxed” about serious riches to a position where the party could take a stand against fat cat remuneration. When Ed said that the gap between rich and poor matters for all of society, and that excessive pay was a moral issue, it was not so much an applause line but a swoon line for many of his fans. (more…)

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Loneliness Kills

10/02/2011, 07:00:16 AM

by Peter Watt

Loneliness is bad for your health. In fact, loneliness kills. According to the world health organisation, loneliness is a higher risk to your health than lifelong smoking. If Beveridge set out to fight the “five giant evils” of ignorance, idleness, want, disease and squalor, then perhaps now is the time to tackle a sixth modern giant, loneliness, with the same vigour.

Last week saw the launch of a campaign that calls on individuals, the voluntary sector and national and local government to work together to end loneliness. Loneliness, according to the campaign to end loneliness, is:

“a psychological state, an emotional response to a perceived gap between the amount of personal contact an individual wants and the amount that they have”.

The group that is the most vulnerable is, of course, older people. The campaign marked the launch by publishing a report, safeguarding the convoy, that sets out the harsh reality for many older people: (more…)

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